Mountain Gipsy
Sky diving, bungee jumping, scuba diving- she was always into extreme sport. But Tima Deryan could not “find herself”. “Not in water and not in the air”. She wanted more than instant adrenaline. Something that stays with her longer and does not disappear once the moment is over.
Today she is a self-assured individual volunteering in Lebanon, a country where she was born. Giving her time and helping women and children in Beirut and contributing towards rebuilding the city’s soul and its infrastructure after the devastating chemical blast in the city’s port on August 4th.
Tima grew up in the United Arab Emirates and her journey to find herself got direction when out of college, at 22 years of age, she was at her first job, she went to hear a motivational speaker. He was speaking about Nepal and his expedition to the top of mount Everest. “It woke up something in me”, she recalls. It took her back to her adventure trips to Nepal with her parents and friends when she was younger. “On hearing about the mountain, I remember saying that I want to climb it”, “everyone humoured me and it was forgotten”.
Fast forward eight years and her excitement built up as the story of the ascent to the summit reached the climax in that closed room. “I went to speak with him after the talk and told him I want to do the same.” And as any mountaineer would, he told her she would have to train and climb other mountains before trying to scale the highest peak in the world.
Four years later, she had under her belt the achievement of scaling the highest peaks on six continents. The first was Mt. Elbrus in Russia, at 5642 m, the highest peak in Europe. This was within months of hearing the talk and was accomplished alongside the same motivational speaker. When she started she did not even know what climbing gear was. Crampons, ice axe, belay , were unknown terms to her. “I did not even buy my own gear for this trip as I did not know how it will all pan out”.
But as she summited Elbrus after days of climbing she had more than a sense of accomplishment. “I felt I was made for this. I felt good. It was hard but I felt good overcoming the challenge,” she tells me via a zoom call from Lebanon. It was after this that the dream to ascend the Seven Summits, the highest peaks in all the seven continents took shape.
Next on the list was Aconcagua, in Argentina. At 6960.8 meters, it is the highest peak outside of Asia. This didn’t go too well and Tima had to abort the expedition just 400 m short of the summit. It was two years later, and after several other climbs in between, that Tima managed to scale Aconcagua. “The air gets rare, the pressure low, the body feels the lack of oxygen and energy”, Tima tells me. “On Everest which is a much longer and more technical climb you have oxygen, but here as you move up at every step you have to ask the mountain for permission to let you climb it.”
Mt. Denali in Alaska posed a different set of challenges. Its remote site and no porters meant that the climbers had to carry huge amounts of weight. “It was almost a 30kg backpack and then the food for the group on the sledge, carrying which was also shared,” says Tima. But it was not the physical challenge but what she heard there that bothered her more. People were surprised to see a dessert woman in Alaska. The question always was – An Arab woman here, climbing? “I felt I needed to tell the world not to stereotype Arab women. To show them how strong women from the middle-east are.” It is a feeling that has stayed with her.
It was during these expeditions that Tima learnt and realised that summiting was great, but it was the journey that was much more important. “Something lights up in me when I am in the mountains. I have so much energy when I come back, that I want to engage with people and give back.”
While she has achieved a lot and derives satisfaction from it, a real sense of fulfilment came when she took a group of Emirati girls to Mt. Kilimanjaro (the highest mountain in Africa which she had scaled earlier). The trip coincided with UAE Women’s Day making it even more special. “I trained these girls over a year and getting them to the peak and making them experience the freedom and power made me more content than my personal trips.”
Frequent climbs meant Tima could no longer keep her regular job. She worked whenever she could and helped with her father’s company. She was five down on the list of the seven among many others, including mountains in the middle east region. Everest was scheduled for 2020 as she needed to collect money for it. (An expedition can cost from $50-60,000). But as a gift on her birthday in December 2018, her parents offered to pay a part of it. And thus started preparations for the big climb.
The expedition took Tima two months. She fell ill on the way, but refused to return. “There is nothing like this. Living away for so long, trying to survive. You hear avalanches, ground breaking under you, you never know what will come next. You live in survival mode.” The first Lebanese woman to scale the peak and one of the few Arab women who have achieved the feat, Tima thanks the forces for being with her. But she equally thanks the Sherpa who climbed with her. “They are your soulmates during that time. They keep you going” says Tima and adds that not many people would be able to achieve the Everest climb if it were not for the Sherpas.
The litter along the way to the Everest upset Tima, who also works with groups on cleaning our surroundings and the environment. “The climb is hard and bringing back used or waste stuff is not on everyone’s mind.” She feels people need to be more considerate and responsible and should be made accountable to bring back what they take. But it is a tough call that needs both regulation on part of the government and resolution on part of the climbers. A group of committed Sherpas do the cleaning every now and then but it is not enough.
Now 27, Tima has one left in her list of seven – Mt. Vinson Massif in Antarctica. But she is in no hurry. “I want to do that and the North pole and more”, she says excitedly but adds that she wants to do much more than climbing. “I have done this does not mean I am all sorted out. I am young and want to put my energy into many more things. I want to tell women to feel the freedom inside them. Only then can they demand freedom from society. I want to embed this in the minds of young girls”, she tells me.
And in Lebanon, as she works to rebuild lives of women and children in the Katantina neighbourhood of Beirut, with the NGO Borderless, she hope for a better middle-east. “I am a mountain-climber, but I have a bigger message. A message that is way bigger than me”.
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